Wednesday, December 15, 2010

(continuing) "No. I don't live in Baltimore. I live in Ft Worth and commute each week. I work in Frederick for Wells Fargo. I head up their Foreclosure group. Contrary to what you've read, if you default on your house, we DON'T want it. It costs us $135 a day to maintain a house being foreclosed on. Did you know that when Barney Frank was directing Fannie Mae, you could buy a house for $500 down, no job, no credit and no plans to pay for it? Then you stayed rent free for 6 months while we worked through the paperwork."

I asked him which states were the worst for foreclosures.

"California and Florida. There are so many people under water in those states, I have job security for the next 5 years."

When absurdity gives way to hilarity, you must be talking about politics.

In the midst of a colossal global concern for the economic stability of our great nation, Emanuel Cleaver, Democrat - Missouri's 5th Congressional District representative, has one small earmark on his wish list that deserves some attention.

Nothing ruins a recent purchase quite like finding lower prices online as soon as you bring it home. With one of these barcode-scanning, price-crunching smartphone apps, that never has to happen again.

iOS

RedLaserA quick, relatively accurate barcode scanner from the company that provides the basic scanning functionality for many other apps on this list, including Amazon's, eBay's and FoodScanner's. Independent of any particular retailer or price aggregator (though now owned by eBay), RedLaser is free to search a variety of online sources for the best prices, which, combined with its best-in-group scanning ability, makes for a hugely useful app on any post-3G iPhone. Free, iPhone.

Right now, looking at the photographs of this house in Fogo Island—Newfoundland, Canada—there's nothing I would like to do more than to jump into a plane and hibernate there. Painting, eating fresh fish, and drinking whiskey.

There is little Christmas cheer on Capitol Hill this week, as Republicans and Democrats prepare for another showdown, this time involving a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill loaded to the brim with pork that would keep the government funded until the next fiscal year. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that he intends to put the bill to a vote before Congress adjourns. Republicans countered that there is not enough time for sufficient debate on such a massive bill and proposed that Congress pass a temporary Continuing Resolution that will keep the government funded until February instead. So far, neither side has budged. With just four days left until the last temporary funding patch expires, the federal government will shut down if Congress cannot come to an agreement by Saturday.

January 1, 2009 — Sociologists found a direct relationship between obesity and duration and frequency of hospital stays. Researchers found that, on average, obese persons stayed one and a half days longer than those with normal weight. Sociologists attribute the connection to disease--46 percent of obese adults have high blood pressure. Obesity is also linked to an increased risk of heart disease, diabetes, stroke and other illnesses. The researchers also note that the longer a person has been obese, the more likely their hospital stay is lengthened.

Clay Duke, a Florida man whose wife had been recently fired by the local school system, took matters into his own hands Tuesday as he entered a Bay County school board meeting armed with a handgun. After school board members tried to talk Duke down, he raised his pistol and began firing randomly at the seated school board members.

He missed all of them. A security guard then shot and wounded Duke. At that point Duke killed himself.

Clay Duke, the man who opened fire on a Florida school board Tuesday, posted a "last testament" on Facebook decrying the wealthy and linking to a slew of progressive sites including theprogressivemind.info and MediaMatters.org.

The chilling Facebook statement, posted under the "About Clay" section, talks about being born poor and how the rich "take turns fleecing us" …

Duke also includes an exhaustive list of links under the quote "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" The page includes a link dedicated to Wikileaks, another to a progressive 9/11 truther site, and even Media Matters…

Mental issues, all right. Think of the media extravaganza if instead of a lib taking his cues from the lefties at Media Matters, he had been a Tea Party patriot.

I have heard a history teacher describe Stalinist Russia as a basically benevolent and prosperous society with a few minor problems. I have looked through a school library for a biography of Mao Zedong, only to find it populated exclusively by hagiographies written by 70s radicals. I have had philosophy teachers who have never heard of Friedrich Hayek. I have been told that dialectical materialism is an indisputable fact in which all historians believe. I have, as mentioned, read course plans which openly instruct teachers to fail students who affirm the existence of human nature or objective truth, and to give good grades to those who regard history as a political tool of the ruling classes. I have had textbooks on 20th century philosophy with dozens of pages devoted to mediocrities like Simone de Beavouir but not a single mention of Wittgenstein or Russell. I have had lessons on the Middle Ages that have consisted almost entirely of infantile urban legends. (Angels on the head of a pin, feudalism, etc.) I have heard of teachers who openly exhort their students to vote Socialist. I have been told that it is racist to pass moral judgment on female genital mutilation.

Christmas card in the collection of the British Library, which will help you email your greetings.

Somehow you just knew a Brit was behind Christmas cards.

Was there something in the air? In 1843, the same year that Dickens published A Christmas Carol, a Brit invented the printed Christmas card. The first in the world, the card showed a happy family raising a festive glass, while side scenes showed the family clothing and feeding the poor.

The man who commissioned it was Sir Henry Cole, the founder of the Victoria & Albert Museum. The painter was John Calcott Horsely, a member of the Royal Academy, who was known as "Clothes-Horsely" because he did not care to paint women nude. Printed in black and white and then colored by hand, 1,000 cards were produced for "Old King" Cole.

The tradition did not really take off until the Christmas of 1862 when printer Charles Goodall produced a simple card with the words "A Merry Christmas". Robins were added later, followed by holly, jolly depictions of St Nick and beautiful images of the Holy Family. Features like the "trick card", with a surprise generated by moving a tab, proved popular with some.

Polar bears may survive global warming after all Many have mourned the plight of polar bears, whose habitat is literally melting away as the ice caps shrink. But several new predictions from geophysicists show that the bears may be frolicking on huge regions of ice for centuries.

Nature News reports from this week's Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco:

Stephanie Pfirman, an environmental scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in New York, and her colleagues are to present climate models at the meeting tomorrow that predict sea ice will continue to pile up on the northern side of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and Greenland, where the thickest sea ice exists today. Some of this ice is formed locally, and some is driven in from Siberia by wind and ocean currents. Pfirman estimates that an area of ice perhaps half a million square kilometres in size is likely to persist year-round long into the twenty-first century.

Although the amount of ice that melts each summer is increasing, ice is still forming in the winter, and it is being transported to the Canadian side of the Arctic faster than before because the waters are more open. "If it used to take 8 or 9 years to make the trip, it might now do it in 7 years," says Robert Newton, a geochemist also at Lamont-Doherty.

IRS Whistleblower Office Issues Annual Report

During FY 2009, the IRS received 460 whistleblower submissions relating to 1,941 taxpayers that appeared to meet the $2 million of tax, penalties, interest, and additions to tax threshold in § 7623(b). ... The number and amount of awards paid each year can vary significantly, especially when a small number of high-dollar claims are resolved in one year (as was the case in 2006 and 2008).

SAN FRANCISCO — The greatest extinction in the history of life may have been caused, in part,a massive volcanic eruption, a new study suggests. Geologists have found surprisingly high amounts of the elements fluorine and chlorine in Siberian lavas dating back 250 million years — when about 90 percent of marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial species went extinct. http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/12/siberian-traps/

A new ABC-Washington Post poll found ObamaCare sunk to its lowest popularity yet: 52 percent opposed, and only 43 percent in favor. ABC mentioned the poll without fanfare at the end of a Jake Tapper report on Monday’s World News, and Tapper added this was the health law's "lowest level of popularity ever." But Tuesday’s Washington Post reported not one sentence on the poll in the paper

Amazing Satellite Images of the Ghost Cities of China

The hottest market in the hottest economy in the world is Chinese real estate. The big question is how vulnerable is this market to a crash.

One red flag is the vast number of vacant homes spread through China, by some estimates up to 64 million vacant homes.

The hottest market in the hottest economy in the world is Chinese real estate. The big question is how vulnerable is this market to a crash.

One red flag is the vast number of vacant homes spread through China, by some estimates up to 64 million vacant homes.

We've tracked down satellite photos of these unnerving places, based on a report from Forensic Asia Limited. They call it a clear sign of a bubble: "There’s city after city full of empty streets and vast government buildings, some in the most inhospitable locations. It is the modern equivalent of building pyramids. With 20 new cities being built every year, we hope to be able to expand our list going forward."

Here's China's most famous ghost city: Ordos

There are no cars in the city, except for a few dozen parked at the glamorous government center

School: Tree Must Be Decorated With Jewish, Muslim Symbols

AP File

Ashland public schools can display a decorated pine tree if it is surrounded by symbols from other religious holidays, but they should not display a Christmas tree alone, in order to remain religiously neutral, Superintendent Juli Di Chiro told the School Board Monday.

'It's Sickening'

It's the appropriators' last stand, as Senate Democrats roll forward a $1.1 trillion, earmark-laden spending plan to fund the government for the next year.

Jaws dropped all over Capitol Hill as the Senate Appropriations Committee and its leader, Hawaii's Daniel Inouye, wheeled out the 2,000-page measure that had been stitched together from a dozen smaller bills behind closed doors this week.

The bill is so defiant of the current trend toward austerity and against pork barrel politics that it even includes $10 million to build a center in memory of Rep. John Murtha, the earmark king of Western Pennsylvania, who died amid a growing scandal over the funds he directed to his home district.

Christmas Gifts for that Special Tax Person

Does it pain you to fill out a tax form each year? Does knowing that the IRS takes a large chunk of your salary give you the runs? This product isn't deductible, but it'll sure make you feel better. A collage of the 1040 IRS Form is printed throughout the whole roll!

17 years after Myst twinkled onto Mac computers, we now have Riven, the iOS game. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but Riven's broken the barrier for game download-size, measuring in at a bloated 1GB. Well, 1.01GB, to be exact.

Understandably, its developers are cautious in the app description:

"Riven for iOS is a VERY, VERY large application. We've managed to optimized Riven from its original DVD size to a little over a gigabyte. Even at that size it's one of the largest iOS app we know of - so PLEASE BE PATIENT - download times and syncing times can be longer! It's possible on slower iOS devices for the downloading/syncing to pause FOR 10 OR 15 MINUTES."

The game costs $6, which sounds as huge as the download—but for fans of the Age of Riven Island, it will be well worth the wait. Surprisingly, it actually makes last year's Myst iPhone release (at 727MB) look tiny

It's not even lunchtime yet, but already I'm dreaming of that first glass of vino collapso. What? It's practically the holidays. Let me get on with my boozehound ways—preferably with this Bosch power drill-corkscrew-hybrid

Those Canadian lumberjacks must know a trick or two about staying warm. While gadgeteers console themselves in heated jackets and Slankets, lumberjacks were out there slapping bits of steel together to create the Bullerjan furnace. Toasty

Vaccine Boosts Immune System, Helps Prevent Chronic Inflammation

ScienceDaily (Dec. 14, 2010) — Researchers at BRIC, the University of Copenhagen, have discovered that the human body can create its own vaccine, which boosts the immune system and helps prevent chronic inflammatory diseases. The researchers' results have just been published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation and may have significant consequences in developing new medicine.

Professor Issazadeh-Navikas' group was able to show for the first time the ability of a self peptide to activate NKT cells to suppress many tissue-specific inflammatory conditions including experimental autoimmune diseases